114 MOUNTAINS AND THEIR ORIGIN. 
the workmen wrought at these successive layers 
of rock to see what they would yield for practical 
purposes, a man was watching their operations 
who considered the crust of the earth from quite 
another point of view. 
Abraham Gottlob Werner was born more than 
a century ago in Upper Lusatia. His very in- 
fancy seemed to shadow forth his future studies, 
for his playthings were the minerals he found in 
his father’s forge. At a suitable age he was 
placed at the mining school of Freiberg in Sax- 
ony, and having, when only twenty-four years of 
age, attracted attention in the scientific world by 
the publication of an “ Essay on the Characters 
of Minerals,” he was soon after appointed to the 
professorship of mineralogy in Freiberg. His lot 
in life could not have fallen in a spot more ad- 
vantageous for his special studies, and the enthu- 
siasm with which he taught communicated itself 
to his pupils, many of whom became his devoted 
disciples, disseminating his views in their turn 
with a zeal which rivalled the master’s ardor. 
Werner took advantage of the mining opera- 
tions going on in his neighborhood, the blasting, 
sinking of shafts, etc., to examine critically the 
composition of the rocks thus laid open, and the 
result of his analysis was the establishment of the 
Neptunic school of geology alluded to in a pre- 
vious article, and so influential in science at the 
